Ariana said near surface in-fill resource drilling results from the project's Zeki vein included 6.m at 4.21g/t gold and 205.9g/t silver, 5.3m at 4.04g/t gold and 171.9g/t silver and 6.4m at 3.44g/t gold and 89.3g/t silver.

 

It said bonanza-grade mineralisation was encountered in one hole, yielding 0.9m at 30.27g/t gold and 184g/t silver, or 32.9g/t gold-equivalent, in a footwall vein not previously drill-tested.

 

Managing director Dr. Kerim Sener said the mineralisation encountered within the top 40m of the Zeki vein system shows sufficiently high grades and widths to support an openpit operation. 

 

Most of the high-grade results were found to occur over circa-130m of strike to a depth of at least 40m, with the true widths of veins at around 3-4m.

 

The company added that coarse-screening of samples had confirmed a coarse gold fraction of over 75 microns.

 

"The occurrence of coarse gold and bonanza grade gold and silver mineralisation in places is highly encouraging," Sener said.

 

Besides the drilling, Ariana has contructed a new low-gradient haulage access road to the trial mining area, which it will use for potential future haulage to the Kiziltepe processing plant. Kizilcukur is 22km northeast of the Kiziltepe mine.

 

Sener said this was in anticipation of the expected September quarter completion of its assessments on the feasibility of hauling ore from Kizilcukur to the Kiziltepe processing plant as part of a bulk processing trial.  

 

Ariana will also prepare a revised mineral resource estimate, with Sener saying he expected Kizilcukur to be an attractive addition to Red Rabbit joint venture operations, due to the high grades and gold recoveries that had been recently demonstrated. 

 

The company's shares (AIM:AAU) gained 4.39% Thursday to 2.14p (US2.72c).